Monday, September 22, 2008

Mr. Angry is back in town. Want to know what a Harper majority would look like? How does a war on teenagers sound? This will play well with the "Goddamn young punks!" crowd, who don't trust anyone under 70. Not that this group wasn't already voting Tory anyway.

Well Ben, if they are old and mature enough to get life in prison for murder, then they are certainly mature enough to vote and decide with whom they will have sex with. Or to drink. Or smoke.

Let see if that flies in conservative land.

As much as you feel about a 16 year old who raped and strangled a 29-year-old mother in BC should get, remember that in such and incident, there has ALWAYS been the legal opportunity to transfer to adult court and receive adult sentences.

Remember, this will also be used against the naive and credulous 15-year-old who was suckered by some cowardly svengali into doing this.

But please, if you can show some date where such sentences actually work at preventing crime or deterring people from committing heinous crimes in the first place, please present it.

To me it looks like a legal way for authoritarian sadists to get an erection.

Many conservatives seem to consider criminals to be a distinct and separate class, so what applies to a 16-year-old criminal shouldn't apply to a law-abiding 16-year-old taxpayer (who also shouldn't have to worry about cameras at traffic lights when there are real 16-year-old criminals out there committing crimes).

Not to scuttle Harper's plans by pointing out the obvious, but way back during the era of the Young Offenders Act, those 16 and over accused of a violent crime were automatically sent to adult court. So what exactly is being changed?